


"and your damage done"

by twistedmiracle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Complete, Gay Sex, Infidelity, M/M, Post - Deathly Hallows, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-27 23:38:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedmiracle/pseuds/twistedmiracle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eros affair: Harry to Draco: I promise not to wear underwear the next time we go out.</p><p>Summary: How was it that being grown up had once seemed exciting and desirable?</p>
            </blockquote>





	"and your damage done"

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: owensmom, 13moons and pushdragon. Profound thanks to all three. This story would have sucked without them. If it still sucks, it's my fault, not any of theirs!
> 
>  
> 
> Author's note: How was it that such a light-hearted prompt had become something so heavy and sad? I blame the english muffins.
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings: infidelity, angst, homosexual sex, DH-compliant including that crappy epilogue

*

Scorpius half-tripped out of the Floo and stumbled into the Potter living room. Neither he nor Al seemed to notice his clumsiness, as though he did things like that every day. This graceless, carefree boy was Malfoy's child? Harry could only give Ginny a silent look of amusement before the boys zoomed off upstairs together. Ginny meandered toward the kitchen as Harry walked to the foot of the stairs and listened as the footfalls and voices got further.

"You have to see my room! James is away till next Monday! Wait till you try my Mum's spag bol!" A door slammed far above and Harry noticed that Lily was standing at his side.

"Papa?"

Harry indulged himself and swung her up into his arms. "Yes, my girl?"

She crossed her arms and shifted uneasily in his loose embrace. Feeling a little creaky, Harry leaned back from his hips to keep them both in balance. He knew she felt far too old - and tall -for such treatment at ten, but he didn't care. She would be off to Hogwarts with the boys soon enough and he wanted all the hugs he could steal. And she still looked plenty little to him. He could have her stay that way a while, if only it were his decision.

"Does he _have_ to come visit for a whole _week_?"

Harry smiled at her. There were things he knew that he couldn't fully understand, having grown up as he had. One of them was the way little sisters truly felt about sharing their homes and older brothers. "Yes, kitten. Scorpius is Al's friend, and we've already said he could stay for the whole time that James is off visiting Soumil."

Lily looked grumpy.

"You know, kitten, when you are done with Madam Everard's school and go off to Hogwarts you'll make friends you'll want to invite home for visits, too."

Lily considered this silently, narrowing her eyes at first, then widening them and smiling her happy faith. As she ran off to look at her copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ yet again (he'd bet a shiny gold galleon on that any day), Harry wondered if he wanted to thank Hermione or hex her, yet again.

**

That night at dinner Harry tried to behave as though Scorpius was a twelve-year-old child like any other, but the boy's astonishing physical resemblance to his father was unnerving. He hoped his feelings weren't anything a kid would see, but the funny looks Ginny couldn't seem to stop throwing at him were a concern. He probably _was_ staring at the kid a bit more than was polite. Having what amounted to a Draco clone sitting across from Lily dredged up more Hogwarts memories than Harry had swum in for years.

So when Scorpius fawned at him out of nowhere with "my Dad says you're the best Auror!" Harry's first, completely inane thought was that _two could play that game_.

"It's very kind of your father to say such things, Scorpius, but really, I'm nothing special anymore. Lately the young pups fresh out of training keep showing me up." Harry forced himself not to sigh. He hated being humbled by younger Aurors. "Why, Icarus Diggle just the other day…." He looked around at the other faces at his table. "Well, I'm sure it's nothing you want to hear."

Scorpius cocked his head, his forkful of spaghetti bolognese halfway to his mouth. "Course, if you're as old as my Dad, you're _really old_ , aren't you?"

Ginny came to his rescue. "Tell me again about that Slytherin/Ravenclaw game?" she asked, and the children forgot Harry's age and relative abilities immediately.

He thought the focus on his wear and tear was forgotten, but that night after the two of them had forced three excited children into their beds, Ginny made a placating and far too offhand sounding comment about how the Auror Training Academy was truly top notch these days now that Harry and Ron were taking over some of the advanced classes.

Harry smiled and patted her hand, but he felt worn down between annoyance at her need to praise someone else along with him and a sense, yet again, of how ridiculous he obviously must seem if he needed to be praised in the first place.

***

For a few days nothing was out of the ordinary (except for coming home to the dog gone purple and yellow, but Ginny sorted her out with a potion she made Al pay for out of his birthday money savings). Scorpius and Al had tremendous days driving Lily and Ginny mad and turning Al's room into a disaster zone worthy of the twins when Fred was still alive and George was still… all George.

Harry started to feel a bit more comfortable with the idea that Al was so close to Scorpius. He might be a Malfoy, but he had a mother as well, and clearly she must be a good influence on him.

For the first time Harry started to feel blasé about his son being a Slytherin and, therefore, having primarily Slytherins as friends. It was even easy to imagine having Scorpius visit again, for Harry realized he genuinely liked him.

But when Harry came home a little early on Thursday, he heard Lily's most high-pitched, quavery tone coming from behind the house.

"Stop it! Leave me alone!"

Harry sped around the side of the house, formal cloak flapping and wrapping irritatingly around his legs.

Despite his rush, _Stealth and Tracking_ kicked in without conscious thought, and the children had no idea they were being observed. He chided himself for being proud of being able to sneak up on distracted children. Was that all he had to brag about these days?

The beetle was abnormally large, surely magically enhanced, and all of the children were clearly both excited and flustered by it. Lily, however, seemed far too wrapped up in her own discomfort to see that it was mutual.

"Don't be such a _baby_ Lily. Touch it! Come on Sis, you're such a _girl_!"

" _I'm_ being a girl? You're the one who picked it up at the end of a long stick, Albus!"

In his head, Harry cheered his daughter. She was so level headed - even when miserably uncomfortable.

"What do you boys think you are doing?" Harry strode into view and watched with approval as both boys quailed. Lily hurried to him and he leaned over and let her curve herself to his side. He put his hand around her thin shoulder, felt her heart banging. Protectiveness rose in him like a wall. He kissed her auburn hair at the temple and shooed her gently toward the house. She left stiffly, but didn't look back.

Al looked defiant. He and Lily had a relationship that Ginny understood bone deep. But Harry had never completely felt at home with it. He knew, however, that Lily still followed Al around a little more than Al liked. With Scorpius here he'd probably felt a need to prove his masculinity and independence to his friend.

Scorpius simply looked abashed. "I should have known… my dad said…."

Harry fumed. He knew just what Draco Malfoy would have said about him, too. _"Harry Potter is a do-gooder of the smarmiest tone. Harry Potter is a thorough Gryffindor: try to rescue the maiden but instead get eaten by the dragon. Harry Potter has a 'saving people thing.'"_

Harry could just _hear_ Malfoy's snotty drawl in his mind, and he almost snarled his reaction out loud. _You little turd, if I didn't have a saving people thing you wouldn't be here to tease my daughter_ , he thought maliciously. Then he actually heard Scorpius.

"… that you are a 'really decent fellow,' and I could learn from you about how to be one, too. I shouldn't have teased Lily like that. I should have known better, and I'm sorry." Harry thought Scorpius' cheeks were pink. The boy was twisting a toe in the grass and staring at it as though it were a mysterious Muggle creation, not his own foot.

Harry realized it was past time for him to respond. He thought to tell Scorpius that it was all right, but Lily's miserable face rose into his heart and he couldn't. "It's really Lily you need to apologize to," he managed, feeling inadequate. Al looked chagrinned and Harry took hold of his boy's shoulder as Scorpius walked around the corner to find Lily.

"Whose idea was that, Al? And who used _Engorgio_ on the beetle?"

Harry fought not to roll his eyes as Al gave him a look of horror. "Don't forget who you're dealing with, son." Thank heaven the twelve year olds, at least, were still impressed with him. "Come on. You need to apologize to Lily, too."

Al made the mistake of looking relieved, so Harry made sure to pause just long enough before, "Your mother and I will be discussing exactly what consequences you will be suffering for this."

They were silent together then, and both heard Scorpius speaking as they walked around the corner.

"… I don't have any sisters, you know, the sibling thing is all new to me. Not that I should have teased you like that, there's no excuse for it. Anyway, I hope you can accept my apology. I got all caught up in the excitement of the game and forgot to think about how you might actually be feeling."

Harry wondered how this child could possibly be a Malfoy. But then again, would he have been able to come up with empathy like that at twelve? He wondered again about Scorpius' mother. She must be a lot better at this parenting stuff than Harry was, to have raised a child who could say things like that.

Harry was fairly certain that Al saw none of his surprise as he looked down over his glasses at his child and fairly dared him to come out with a better apology. When he saw Al swallow, he was reasonably sure that Al was still thinking only of himself and not his father's inadequacies at all. Harry felt - particularly at moments like this - that he was flying blind.

****

On Sunday Scorpius packed up his little case and the Malfoys came to dinner to fetch their son. Harry told himself it wasn't strange to have Malfoy in his house as he scrubbed the bathroom (magic or no, he still hated cleaning the bathroom) and heard Ginny cursing at uncooperative vegetables in the kitchen.

Harry noted that the father didn't trip when he came through the Floo, that the father didn't seem the slightest bit surprised by Harry Potter's outstretched hand of welcome, that the father wasn't a scowling brat of an eleven year old anymore. Harry couldn't even see the crying seventeen year old choking out the name of his dead friend. (Though he'd been picturing that rather vindictively all day.) All he could see was a poised, relaxed man in perfectly nice steel gray robes.

Harry shook Mrs. Malfoy's hand and watched as the women complimented each other's clothes, as Celie Malfoy walked around the parlour and through to the kitchen with Ginny and exclaimed over the delicious smells of Ginny's nicest roast dinner, over Ginny's sky blue walls and imported wooden furniture.

Celie was a nice looking woman: blonde, blue-eyed, and far shorter than her tall husband. Her pale pink robes looked very nice on her, but were nothing extraordinary. Harry realized he'd expected the Malfoys to come dressed for an audience with the Queen, just to rub in their wealth and social standing.

Finally Harry realized he'd been quiet a bit too long. He had to say _something_ and he hoped he wouldn't sound insecure, or fake, or adolescent. He realized this would be the first time since they were eleven that he spontaneously said anything nice to Malfoy. He felt a stab of cowardice at having simply owled Malfoy's wand back to him twenty years before. Couldn't he have brought it by in person? He considered what to say for a moment, then finally opened his mouth.

"You've raised a very fine son, Malfoy." He was relieved when it came out sounding utterly normal. "His visit has been a real pleasure. I hope he enjoyed staying here as much as we enjoyed getting to know him."

Draco Malfoy smiled at Harry Potter.

Relieved that the evening was probably not going to be a disaster, Harry smiled back. He could do this. They could do this. They could forget their unpleasant history and the children would never know.

Then, Malfoy winked. Harry was fairly sure he didn't show his shock. Before he could even try to imagine why Malfoy would _wink_ at him, the other man began to speak.

"I expect you're wondering how on earth I managed to raise a boy like him, aren't you, Potter?" Malfoy's laughter was warm and friendly and even modest. Or at least, it sounded modest to Harry. He knew he was sometimes gullible. It was also rather difficult to think of Draco "my father will hear of this" Malfoy as modest.

"All Celie, I confess. Her talents are practically wasted on just the one child. She's a born mother, I tell her all the time."

Harry, who would have happily had five or six children if it weren't for all the miscarriages, was proud of himself for keeping his mouth shut about _why they only had the one, then_? Instead he managed, "She seems a lovely woman. Where did you meet?"

The longer the evening went on the less often incidents from Hogwarts popped uninvited into Harry's mind. Normally, thinking of Malfoy - no, there were three Malfoys at his table, he'd have to use first names - brought hard feelings, bad memories, and anger. But apparently that was the old Draco, because this older one made all of that negativity from childhood fade to the back of Harry's mind.

Halfway through dinner Ginny commented that it was unseasonably chilly for an evening in July, and she shot a spell at the fire that raised the flames. Harry was suddenly so awash in memories of rescuing Malfoy from the Fiendfyre that he could feel Malfoy clutch him desperately from behind, could feel a skinny boy, just as thin as himself, pressed - terrified and screaming - against his back. He could feel the heat of the flames, see Malfoy's long fringe falling over the slope of his tense shoulder as he steered them to safety… well, that he now remembered not only easily, but accidentally, all evening long.

Uncharitably, Harry found that this one memory was actually a bit of a comfort. His old rival might be a match for him now, rich and happily married and father of a very fine boy, but once upon a time Harry had been Draco Malfoy's rescuer, his saviour. Harry was a bit ashamed of the feeling of satisfaction that gave him, but he could not shake the sense of superiority. Perhaps he didn't really want to shake it.

All through dinner Harry tried to see the cracks in the façade. Draco sounded warm and content as he talked about how his mother had introduced him to Celie, as he told amusing and ordinary anecdotes about family holidays and living at the Manor with his own little family and also his mother, as he laughed about Scorpius' funny misadventures, as he shared the most natural, common joys and pleasures of parenting.

Celie herself was attentive and thoughtful, though her French-accented English was slightly confused at points. _I wonder if Draco speaks French,_ Harry mused as Celie struggled to find an adjective adequate to describe her delight in the Isle of Skye, where the four Malfoys had gone together for a pre-Hogwarts celebration a year before.

After serving the pudding, Ginny even invited Celie to come along the next time Ginny went out with her friends for the evening. They had a "Muggle appreciation club" that met fortnightly to do things like see movies and plays, and then eat in wizarding restaurants to discuss their evening.

Harry held his breath as Celie listened to Ginny's brief description of the women's gatherings. Would she laugh, disdain, revile? Had Malfoy married a woman with the same pureblood prejudices he'd flaunted all through school?

But Celie enthusiastically agreed to come along, declaring that, having grown up with old-fashioned pure-blood traditions in the most rural, dull part of all France, learning about Muggles with other witches was exactly what her social calendar needed.

"Did Beauxbatons not have a Muggle Studies curriculum then, Celie?" Harry tried to infuse his voice with nothing but polite curiosity. He wanted to be relieved by Celie's reaction, but it was hard to assume the best motives.

"Ah," Celie sighed. "My parents insisted that I keep my class schedule free of, how do you say… extras? Options? They wished me to concentrate on only the most academic of magical pursuits. They felt that Muggle Studies was a choice too… soft."

"Celie is a brilliant scholar," Draco said proudly.

There wasn't a smirk or a veiled nasty comment or anything unpleasant from Draco all evening. Harry tried not to be surprised. He knew he was having difficulty letting go of the past but he wasn't sure if that made him sensible or petty.

After Scorpius and Al were pried apart, Scorpius Flooed home with his mother. Ginny gently coaxed Al upstairs to offer him comfort. James would be home in the morning and Al didn't have any plans to visit with his own Hogwarts friends for the rest of the summer. The boys did love each other, but Al could be shy and James was all big brother to him: bluster, tease, bravado and pecking order. Sometimes Harry feared naming the boy James had been a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The two men stood uncomfortably in front of the Floo. Harry wondered why Malfoy hadn't left and considered what the hell came next. If their sons were so close, and the wives became friendly….

"Thank you again for allowing Scorpius to come visit. I know he gets lonely at the Manor." Malfoy paused and Harry wondered if there was something he was supposed to do now, if he was missing some social cue. "Actually, if you wouldn't mind, I know the summer is more than half over, but if Al doesn't have plans, Celie and I would love to have him come stay. Just for a few days, perhaps?"

Harry felt happy for Al but had to fight down the impulse to insist that Celie be present for the entire visit. "Er, I expect so. I know Al would love it. Have Celie firecall Ginny about it, all right? I know better than to try to schedule anything in this house."

Draco laughed. "Just the same as my house, then." He paused and still didn't take any Floo powder.

Harry felt an unpleasant need to fill the silence. "Scorpius is a fine boy. I said it before, but I want you to know I meant it. It was a pleasure to have him. Boys like him and Al, they give me hope for Slytherin house."

"You sound surprised, Harry."

"Er, well, Scorpius did say some things that surprised me a little." Harry looked up at Malfoy's raised eyebrow. "Twice, at least, your son said that you had told him… complimentary things about me. That I'm a good Auror. A decent man. And I couldn't help but wonder why you're talking about me to your son, you know, at all. Let alone such nice things."

Feeling vulnerable, Harry awaited the sarcastic denial.

Instead, Malfoy shrugged carelessly. "You're his best friend's father. He needed to know who you are to the rest of the world as well. Besides, Potter, it's a new era. He needs to get along in a world where being a good and decent man counts more than blood status or wealth. He needs to know that his marks matter more than his house, that being a good friend is a reward all unto itself.

"There are things my father, God rest his ghost, never understood and could have never taught me. I want to do right by my child in ways Lucius wasn't able to do right by me." Malfoy hadn't been slumping but he suddenly stood taller. "That's all."

After that, Harry half expected Malfoy to shrug defensively, but instead he stood there, looking wordlessly into the fireplace. His handsome face was tense. His grey eyes were guarded.

Harry wondered, again, what was expected of him, what he should do. Seventeen years in DMLE had taught him much about power, intimidation, and magic. It had taught him very little about the quiet dances of social interaction with compelling equals who were not friends.

Upstairs a window banged open. Harry looked toward the stairs and wondered what Ginny was up to, where Lily and Al were, and if the dog, or anyone, might come in and distract them. He had nothing polite to say about Lucius Malfoy.

Malfoy finally took pity on Harry's dumb silence.

"I was wondering, actually, if there wasn't more I could do to be a good example for him, and I thought… well, I'm sure you are a very busy man, but I never get to play Quidditch anymore and perhaps you'd like to get together some time for a friendly sort of Seeker's game? Just us, two brooms and a snitch? Nothing formal, and I'm sure you'll pound me just like you always did at school, but…." Malfoy's voice trailed off.

"Oh, that's such a nice offer, Malfoy, but I couldn't possibly…" Harry stopped. Saying no to a friendly suggestion from an old rival was automatic. But was there any good reason for it? He'd expected a different man to come through his Floo tonight. He'd expected a mean, self-important little blood-supremacist. He'd expected someone who, apparently, had been gone for as long as twenty years.

If Ginny could befriend Celie, and Al was so chummy with Scorpius, shouldn't he be at least as big of a man as… his wife? Wasn't it time to admit that Malfoy had changed? Besides, Quidditch! "… do something like that very often. And I'm really woefully out of practice. Besides, where could we play?"

Malfoy's sudden grin was disarming. It reached all the way to his eyes. "I would imagine Minerva would be willing to let us borrow the Hogwarts pitch once in a blue moon. I could ask her?"

Harry scratched his head. "Er, all right. Go ahead. I expect I could fit in a game one evening. Before the boys are back at Hogwarts?"

Harry realized this was surely why Malfoy had been reluctant to leave, and perhaps now he would be willing to go?

"Let's shake on it, shall we?" He extended his hand to Malfoy again, and although it wasn't the first time that night that he'd gone to shake Malfoy's hand, something had changed. Harry had no idea what he'd missed, but the look on the other man's face, the way he gripped Harry's hand in his right and then his left hand as well, and the sparkle in Malfoy's eyes opened a door in him that he couldn't see and could barely feel.

Nonetheless, he knew it was hiding somewhere in his soul, waiting for something to walk through.

Harry went to sleep that night with a look of bewildered expectation on his face. When Ginny murmured about it he pretended not to hear.

*****

Minerva was perfectly willing to allow them access to the pitch one August evening. The sun didn't set till almost ten and Harry was surprised at how exhilarated he felt when they finally relinquished the pitch to the dark. Harry felt painfully out of shape for Seeking. He caught the snitch both times, but he was almost astonished at how closely matched he and Malfoy were. The man had really given Harry a workout and everything ached. He was even a better Seeker than Charlie Weasley, not that Harry'd had a Seeker's game with Charlie in a few years.

Despite the lack of practice, Harry hadn't felt quite so physical, youthful and skilled at the same time in too damn long. Since he'd been offered the chance to teach a few classes to the nearly trained Aurors, perhaps. Or since they'd finally caught Boots McBraiyte red-wanded.

Harry was rushing so hard on adrenaline from three hours in the sky that when Malfoy invited him to the Three Broomsticks for a pint, he accepted without thinking.

The second thoughts came as - lit wands stretching _Lumos_ out ahead - the two sweaty, panting men in twenty year old Hogwarts Quidditch gear walked stiffly, too much yet not enough space between them, through what felt like several hectares of school grounds warded against apparition. It was roughly the same distance between walking to a usable Floo and simply walking to the pub, so they headed for the pub, broomsticks on their shoulders and no words on their lips.

Bloody hell, how awkward was this? Harry cast about for something worth saying. There were always the boys, but nothing much had happened in the three weeks since Scorpius had come to visit. Can't brag about your son's marks when he's home for summer hols.

He could talk about work but he really didn't _want_ to talk DMLE. Auror business alternated between thrills and profound boredom. Harry had learned the hard way that it made for terrible cocktail hour anecdotes.

There was asking after what Malfoy did, though. Harry realized with a jolt that he didn't actually _know_.

"So," Malfoy suddenly began.

"I was…" Harry started abruptly.

They'd talked right over each other. Harry forced away a childish notion to yell "jinx!" Feeling a prickling desire to relax and be friendly, he turned away and looked at the night, but then Malfoy started to laugh. Harry turned, his own _Lumos_ showing Malfoy actually bent over, wheezing.

It wasn't even close to that funny, but Harry found himself caught along in the mood. He started to smile - first at how ridiculous Malfoy looked laughing like a schoolgirl - but then at the idiocy of the situation. By the time he dropped his broom and grasped his sides he realized that now he was really only laughing to laugh.

It felt fantastic.

When they finally got to the Three Broomsticks they were trading tales of foolish coworkers and worse supervisors. Though they spent the next few hours drinking and talking about nothing exactly personal, Harry still felt like he'd removed a few old woolly jumpers that scratched and no longer fit.

By the time Harry Flooed home from the pub Ginny was already asleep. It was quite late, and Harry was glad she hadn't waited up for him. She was a real bear with the kids when she didn't get enough sleep.

Harry and Draco didn't have enough time to compete again before they brought their boys to King's Cross, but on September first Harry strode over to greet Scorpius and his parents. He'd warned Ron and Hermione beforehand, but he still heard Ron mutter something to Ginny before she pulled away to greet Celie warmly. Harry sighed, but otherwise ignored Ron.

"Malfoy," Harry motioned Draco away from the crush of parents and children. "Good news. I've found a better place for us to play Quidditch."

As Harry described the professional pitch he'd gotten permission to use one Tuesday a month when it wasn't otherwise occupied, he thought he saw Draco's eyes warm and soften like a cat in a puddle of sunlight.

Refusing to consider Malfoy's eyes any further, he looked elsewhere as they formalized their plans.

******

Harry and Draco played twice more that fall. The Tutshill pitch was brightly lit and they had to force themselves to quit at ten o'clock so as to have enough time for a few pints. Harry caught the snitch every time, but the contest was never boring. Draco's Seeker skills were so close to his own. He shadowed Harry's every move unless he was making his own first. Harry wasn't sure how he managed to catch the tiny thing sometimes and he ended both competitions aching and drenched.

After their September game they returned to the Three Broomsticks. Harry bought Draco a pint to thank him for a great evening and Draco bought Harry a pint to congratulate him for the win.

"You know Malfoy, you said Celie was the reason Scorpius was such a good kid, but I think you're selling yourself short. You're a different person than you were at Hogwarts. You've made so many changes for the better."

Draco laughed and nudged Harry's elbow with his own. "I'm not sure that quite qualifies as a compliment!"

Harry took a deep swig from his pint and laughed. "Of course you're not, you wanker! I'm sure you thought you were a perfect little angel in school!"

"Well, no," Draco conceded. "But I do think we have rather different views of our years there. Wouldn't you agree?"

Harry looked away from perceptive grey eyes, his pint halfway up to his mouth, and stared at the display of bottles behind the bar. He counted three different types of Firewhiskey. Seven different brands of Scotch. Four vodka labels. Eight bottled beers and four more on tap and a myriad of other types of alcohol stared back at him. But they all got you equally happy and stupid.

"I never thought of it that way, but you know, I expect you're shockingly… correct, Malfoy."

Harry paused and put his pint down. "Or, Draco. I suppose, after all this, I should just call you Draco."

Draco smirked at him, a look so oddly familiar and yet not, that Harry's stomach flipped unpleasantly. "Please do. I prefer it. That is, as long as I get to call you… stupid Gryffindor!"

To Harry's relief, they both burst out in peals of extremely undignified laughter.

*******

In late October, in a tiny wizarding pub in Roxburghshire that Draco had apparently been looking to try, Harry found himself half-drunk at quarter to midnight and agreeing that the loser would buy the winner's pints next time.

"Looking forward to buying me that pint, Malfoy?" he laughed.

It was only after he Flooed home that he realized, with an agreement like that, they would always go out for a pint or two after. He decided that he didn't mind.

He did mind how out of shape their games made him feel, however. He started running every morning before work, instead of three times a week. When he noticed a difference, he added pushups. Then it felt disruptive to skip the routine on weekends, so he graduated to seven days a week.

He and Ginny had to stop having sex in the morning, but it wasn't like that had been happening very often anymore.

Draco bought all the pints in November. Draco bought their pints in December. He bought them in January. In February they got kicked out of the pub at two in the morning, drunk on all the lagers and whiskey Draco had bought.

"Harry." Draco said with the unnaturally clear inflection of the very drunk.

Harry turned to Malfoy and smiled broadly, half leaning against a fence near the pub. "If you still amember my name, I think i'means you need more liquor."

"Come to a Quidditch game with me. We'll bring the boys. And Lily, too, if she likes. Does your daughter like a Quidditch…." He belched loudly and laughed. "Game?"

"Wha', now?" Harry looked around him as though a professional game might be starting up and he could get there if he only saw which way the crowd was heading.

Malfoy barked out a laugh. "No! No you moron. Over the Easter hols, maybe. When the kids are all home for a bit. I'll get us some tickets." He looked blurrily at Harry. "S'all right?"

"Why the fuck nah, Draco. The boys'll love it. Not Lily, though. Not a sports fan, my girl. Likes books. Ravenclaw for her, I think."

"Yeah? Have another kid, Harry, and you can send it to Hufflepuff and score a royal flush."

"Tha's five cards, you pure-bred dolt."

They hopped the Knight Bus and laughed at each other good naturedly all the way back to Harry's place. Draco Flooed home from Harry's parlour. Harry insisted. Said it was safer.

On the last day of February Draco suggested they meet in Diagon Alley for a late lunch. Harry felt it would be rude to refuse, so reluctantly, he agreed. If Ginny had questioned him, he'd have said he was mostly going so he wouldn't have to explain a refusal to Al, should Al ask.

At first Harry and Draco talked only about the match they planned to take the children to and then professional Quidditch in general. But then - after laughing about the time when Scorpius had tripped over his own trainer and spilled crisps all over his grandmother at a Wasps match - Draco mentioned feeling at sea with how clumsy Scorpius could be.

"I think he was right around one when he learned to walk. At least, I wasn't worried then, and he seemed perfectly normal. But then, when he was around two - I remember thinking we shouldn't have ponies at his second birthday party because he would fall right off the thing." Draco laughed uneasily and didn't look Harry in the eye.

 _I should say something reassuring…_ Harry thought, and tried not to squirm as he searched for something friendly and wise to offer. "They all develop at their own pace, Draco. If you'd had more than one it would be easier to see. James is so physically adept and always has been, but his language came much slower than Al's did. Kids are just… themselves, from really early on."

"Well, all right… but did any of your kids ever run smack into a wall? Scorpius did that when he was already three! He was talking to me and then he was going to run off and do something, but he looked at me over his shoulder as he ran off… right into a pillar. Hell. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!"

Harry knew it was wrong to laugh at the idea of a three year old child hurting himself, but he couldn't help the smile that cracked over his face.

Draco made a dismissive yet sympathetic noise. "Oh go ahead, Harry. Laugh at it if you want to! Damn." He paused to take a drink of his cranberry pumpkin juice, and when he put the glass back down he smirked and pointed his long finger at Harry's face. "I was _there_ , I'm his _father_ , and I almost laughed loud enough that he could tell. I mean, it was funny!"

Then Draco stopped smiling and put his hand back on the table. "Celie says I'm overprotective. That I'm not home with him enough to see how well he does with so many things. But you know, he still trips and falls all the time. And I can't help but wonder if I failed him somehow. If there were more things, possibly even Muggle things, that I could have, should have tried."

Harry felt like a scab had been pulled off. Draco felt inadequate as a parent sometimes? Draco sometimes worried that he'd failed his son? Harry found himself confessing how imperfect, how foolish and stumped he felt so often, nearly every day, since James was born. He told stories of exhausting days, of days when Ginny had made him feel bad because she was so much better with the children than he was, of times when all he could do was choose between screaming at them or locking someone in a room. Preferably the children but he usually chose himself, instead.

He confessed things he'd never admitted to anyone before and felt freer than he'd felt in longer than he cared to remember.

"And then!" Harry continued, aware but uncaring that he spoke a bit loudly for such a small restaurant, "they said we could take him home, that he and Ginny were healthy and ready to be released from hospital. And I actually drew my wand on the midwife and declared that since anyone could see I wasn't capable of taking care of a newborn, that she must be a Death Eater impostor and to bring in the real midwife immediately! I mean, I know I hadn't had any sleep for nearly a day, but really!"

As they laughed together over Draco's similar story of terror and disbelief, Harry felt a muscle somewhere slowly uncramp. There were things you simply didn't say to Hermione's husband - even if he was your best friend - for they'd get back to you in the most unpleasant way possible. It felt damn good to tell another parent such things without fear.

********

On a drizzly Saturday in early March, when the two "Malfoy boys" Flooed in to pick up the three "Potter boys" to see the Holyhead Harpies play the Appleby Arrows, Draco saw Harry and frowned.

"Why the glamour, Potter?"

Harry grimaced tightly and motioned Draco to come into the kitchen with him, away from the boys, who were chattering together about who they thought would win. James was rooting for Holyhead, but Harry knew it was just to piss his little brother off.

When the kitchen door closed behind them Harry immediately interrupted Draco.

"I was afraid you would react this way. Just, hear me out here. This has nothing to do with you. It's only because I get a lot of unwanted attention in public and I think this is easier on the kids. And me, too, to be honest."

Draco's arms were still crossed aggressively, but his eyebrow went up and his frown leveled. He nodded at Harry to continue.

"I just want to go to a Quidditch game with the boys and a friend. I don't want to fend off interviews or requests for autographs. It upset the children when they were little so I got into the habit years ago. My boys are used to it now. I can explain to Scorpius if you like, or you can. I expect James and Al already have, though. If he even noticed."

Harry waited impatiently for sneering, unbelieving accusations of attention-whoring, but Draco surprised him.

"Then why didn't you wear a glamour when you brought Al to King's Cross in September?"

"Er," Harry was surprised that Draco had noticed. That Draco remembered. "That's a much smaller, much more controlled crowd. And it would be cruel to hide my face from the kids as I say goodbye to them for months on end."

Draco stared into Harry's eyes for a long heartbeat, his arms not budging. Then he extended one long arm toward the kitchen door.

"I see. Well then, let's see if Scorpius even noticed that you look different, and head to the game. We want to get there before all the good programmes are sold."

*********

Harry started calling Draco for lunch a couple of times a month. Draco always said yes.

Harry thought about inviting all three Malfoys over for dinner, but then he decided against it. Ginny didn't like it when he committed her to more work, and having the Malfoys over was definitely work.

Going out for a pint with Draco on a Friday evening, though? That he could probably manage. Somewhere loud and fun. So what if they had to lean in and shout to taunt each other about Quidditch?

**********

When they met at the Tutshill pitch for their March game, Draco looked at Harry a little sideways as he watched Harry walk in.

"What, Draco? You make me nervous when you do that thing with your eyebrow." Harry tried laughing but Draco didn't join in and he stopped.

"I think it's time to up the stakes a little." Draco finally smiled, but Harry didn't like this smile. It wasn't a Quidditch smile. It wasn't a pint at the pub smile. It was a Slytherin smile.

"Draco." Harry leaned on his broom until he felt it sink slightly into the damp earth. "You're the one who always loses."

"Exactly." He gave a calculated looking grin. "I think I need more motivation. Something a little better than the promise of a lager I can easily buy for myself."

"Draco, I _like_ going out for a pint or three after we play." Harry was surprised by the soft and persuasive tone of his own voice.

Draco swung a leg over his broom and pulled a wriggling snitch from a pocket. "As do I. So we should keep doing it. But I want something more interesting as the stakes." He moved to release the snitch, as though that was the end of it. Harry grabbed his hand, wrapping around the snitch and keeping it captive.

"Draco, don't leave it like that, we have to agree. What do you suggest?" He felt the snitch struggling inside their palms.

Draco's smile was easy and casual. He spoke slowly, as though making up the proposal on the spot. "How about… the loser has to… go without underwear the next time we meet up for a game."

Harry noticed that it wasn't really a question. Obviously, it was a joke. He laughed and almost let go of the snitch inside Draco's undependable hold. Instead he stepped closer and readjusted his hand for a better grip. He wasn't ready to look for the snitch yet. "Get serious, Draco. What's your real idea?"

Draco smiled that unnerving smile again. "That _is_ my real proposal, Harry." His voice was smooth and soft and slid over Harry's skin like a snake. Harry reminded himself that he _liked_ snakes. "Think how distracting and uncomfortable that could be. It would put a man at a real disadvantage, throw him off balance. I think it's just the motivation I need to finally beat you to the snitch."

Harry felt distinctly uncomfortable for reasons he was not interested in discerning. "Well, I think we should use something else," he said in his firmest voice.

"Like what?"

"Er…." Harry had nothing. All he could consider was Draco's bizarre suggestion. Since when was _Draco_ concerned about Harry's _pants_?

"Here's my thought," Draco started, sounding casual and confident. "You can propose new stakes for the next game. But tonight? Tonight we use my idea. Only since you haven't got another." He bowed his head slightly and smiled, as though this were a concession.

Harry grasped for a straw. "We could just stick with the pub thing, for one more month."

"Not good enough, Harry. I've lost too many damn times in a row. I want new stakes. Today."

"Well…" and Harry decided to yield. Draco lost every single time. He wanted to fly half-naked next month, flopping around inside his Quidditch leathers? Fine. Let him. Harry would catch the snitch today just like he did every time he played Draco. He released his hold on Draco and the snitch was loose. They were both in the air a moment later.

Ten minutes more and Draco was grinning to split his face, the snitch in his hand and fifty feet of breezy March air between him and the ground.

Harry swallowed and offered to buy Draco a pint anyway.

***********

Later that week Icarus Diggle easily caught the suspect in a case Harry had been working on almost obsessively for over three weeks. He whined about it to Malfoy over terrible pizza the next day. Ginny was absolutely no comfort at times like this.

Then Lily needed help with her homework and Harry couldn't figure out a way to teach her algebraic thinking. Ginny took over and Lily understood Ginny's explanation right away. Harry felt stupid and was surprised by a sudden desire to see if Draco was free to go out for a pint. It wasn't as though they needed him at home, after all.

In April Harry woke up from dreams about beating Draco to the snitch at least twice. Even better were the dreams where he didn't wake up. But they were only dreams. It wasn't like it meant anything, or like he was going to do anything. Besides, he wasn't gay.

************

Harry made sure to arrive at the Tutshill pitch early for their game in late April. Satisfied that Draco was nowhere near, he locked himself into the loo and uncertainly removed his y-fronts from underneath his old Gryffindor uniform. Then, with a sudden flash of smile, he draped them ostentatiously over the handle of his broom and stepped out of the stall.

He found Draco on the pitch, scowling up at the sun, which was at a difficult angle. Draco was facing away, hands on hips, reeking pissiness and Harry was shocked to feel a sensation of… good Godric, that was annoyance. But, though it might be immature, he wanted Draco to see that he was going along with the joke, that he was a good sport. He wanted Draco to turn around and laugh and point and smile.

Draco strode away, still not looking at Harry. He seemed to be looking at the lights. He pointed his wand at one and flicked it on, but seemed unsatisfied with the difference it made to the glare. Harry decided he'd waited long enough.

"Oi! Malfoy!"

Draco turned around and squinted at Harry. He seemed about to speak, perhaps about the light he was so focused on, but then he noticed the bright white scrap draped on top of Harry's broom handle.

Harry's step faltered at Draco's diamond smile. Forcing himself not to trip over his left foot, he switched his eyes from Draco's teeth to his own broom. "See, Draco? I'm a good sport."

Draco's smile twisted up into something lightly mocking. Harry felt a sizzle of nervousness in his spine.

"How do I know those aren't an extra pair?"

Harry felt heat rush to his cheeks, but he looked Draco square in the eye. "For that, _friend_ , you will simply be forced to trust me."

He flew like a demon. He'd let Draco's seemingly never-ending losing streak slow him, dull his knife edge. He'd hardly noticed, it had been so small a relaxation, but it was gone and now he saw. Now he knew. Because now he had it back, and he felt _fantastic_.

He even had an erection.

He refused to allow the game to end. It was risky, but he didn't care. Once, twice, three times he blocked Draco from the snitch instead of catching it for himself. Ten o'clock came and neither of them had caught it even once, and Harry didn't care. He dripped sweat and his thighs hurt and his cock ached and his blood pounded in his fingers and he bloody well didn't care. Draco couldn't keep his eyes off Harry and they were both flying better than half the professionals in the league and he hadn't felt this young and alive and _awake_ in _months_. No, not in years!

Finally Draco had a real bead on the snitch and Harry decided it was now or never. He shot up from underneath, vertical to the other man's horizontal, startling Draco as he yanked the snitch out of flight and almost from his friend's fingertips. He blew an arrogant kiss as he braked to a sudden stop a dozen feet above Draco.

"Now _that_ was _Quidditch_!" he yelled down, throwing both arms outward, feeling his voice and his power spread through the entire place. He felt like he'd cast _Sonorus_ on his spirit and flung his joy outward to fill the whole stadium.

Draco lay back heedlessly as though his broom were a bench, arms notched behind his head, and grinned at Harry like a schoolboy.

Harry threw the snitch rashly and caught it again. He didn't want to share this. Tonight he didn't want to show himself to anyone but his new best friend. "I don't feel like a pub tonight. Come back to my place for a beer. It'll be like a real pub experience, only no jerks. Wait till you see these brilliant pint glasses I have, they were a wedding gift."

Mentioning that made him feel self-conscious, but he decided that was stupid and rejected the thought.

He was relieved when his erection went down on its own as they descended, walked into the changing rooms, locked up and left.

When they arrived Harry paid the neighbor girl for watching Lily, who was fast asleep upstairs. The men watched her walk across the lawn till she waved from her front door and closed it behind her.

Harry turned away from the window and headed for the kitchen, assuming Draco would follow. "Our wives are still out for their Muggle culture group, I suppose. I'll go fetch the beer."

Harry was concentrating on levitating the fancy pub glasses out of the topmost cupboard thirteen feet up, when he felt a warm, strong presence press into his back: first on his right shoulder, then his whole back, then quickly pushing comfortingly against him from thigh to neck to elbow.

Harry nearly forgot about the small array of glass now hovering below his ceiling and leaned back, relaxing into Draco's embrace. Draco's chin hooked over his left shoulder and his hand curled gently around Harry's right hip and still, no alarms went off and no panic ensued. It was nothing. It was friendship. It was safe. It was just about getting the glassware down safely.

Ginny wasn't home to misunderstand.

A blink later Draco's lips pressed into the curve of Harry's ear, and Draco's erection firmed itself into Harry's awareness right in the crack of his arse.

Harry jerked like a fish on the line and glass rained and shattered around them.

" _Reparo_ ," Draco muttered calmly as he spun his wand. Six fancy pub pint glasses reformed from the shards, as Harry spun to face Draco and then backed away.

The glasses sat on the floor. Perfect and incongruous, toppled onto their sides.

"What the _fuck_ , Draco." Harry gripped the worktop with his fingers to prevent himself from drawing his wand.

"Mmm. Yes," Draco purred. His voice was a cat, curling softly around Harry's fingers. Draco stood, relaxed, hands in his waistband in the middle of Harry's kitchen. He almost looked like a model in a fashion magazine. Harry's cock, the little turncoat, got a little thicker.

"No, Draco. No. Where did you even… we're friends now."

"Friends fuck sometimes, Harry."

"I don't fuck my friends, Draco. I don't cheat on my wife. I don't…."

Draco stepped closer. Harry tried to back farther away but he was already cornered.

"You don't what, Harry?"

His voice was soft and gentle. It might have sounded almost soothing if Draco's words weren't so frightening.

"You don't have sex with other men? You don't find me attractive? You don't want to run your fingers through my hair?"

He dropped the volume slightly and Harry fought the instinct to move closer to hear. He could hear.

"You don't want to find all the places on my skin that you can bite and lick to make me scream or pant or helplessly cry out your name?"

Draco stepped a few inches closer.

Harry didn't move, a rat facing a cobra. He felt a hammering pulse in his dick. He tried to force himself to breathe normally.

"You don't want to bend me over your table?"

Draco spoke so slowly that Harry couldn't help but see every picture clearly, as though he were in a Pensieve looking at someone's memories.

"You don't want to yank my Quidditch leathers down over my thighs and trap me where I stand? You don't want to feel my body under yours? Muscles flexing as I slide back to meet you and take you in, begging for your touch, your voice, your cock?"

Harry concentrated on his marriage, his responsibilities. Still, no exit strategies presented themselves for consideration.

"I see your erection, Harry."

Harry flew to cover himself, obvious in his Quidditch gear with no pants to reign it in. Just before he covered it with his hand he realized what contact, warmth, and pressure would do to him right now. He stopped.

Draco stepped even closer.

Harry put up a hand. He thought he might be able to feel the heat rising through Draco's sweat-damp uniform. "What do you want from me, Draco?" He spoke slowly, and - he realized with dismay - a little too loudly.

"Right now, all I want," he paused and slowly used the very tip of his pointy tongue to caress his lower lip, "is to hear you say 'Yes.'"

Harry swallowed and took a deep, slow breath as he felt his cock throb. He looked at the gorgeous blond offering himself on a silver platter but calmed himself away from the suicide ledge. "I don't cheat on Ginny, Draco. You need to leave."

His voice was quiet but firm, and Harry was proud of himself.

Draco didn't move.

Harry raised his wand, noting with dismay that it shook slightly, though his grip on the wand itself was more than secure.

"Goodnight, _friend_ ," he enunciated.

Draco raised both hands in surrender, his wand loosely held between two fingers and a thumb, like a pencil. He backed away, smiling. Harry looked at Draco's mouth and felt an unpleasant flop in his chest. He ignored it and pressed his wand forward a few inches.

Draco stepped into the parlour and reached for the Floo powder. When he said "Malfoy Manor" Harry felt a shiver in his spine, but he ignored that, too.

Draco vanished and Harry sat heavily in a chair facing the fire. He stared into space, unthinking, as his ignored erection slowly deflated.

Upstairs Lily yelled something unintelligible in her sleep.

The dog came down and flopped noisily next to his chair, begging for attention. He ignored her.

The grandfather clock's pendulum swung its arc.

Eventually Ginny Flooed home.

"I caught the snitch," he muttered.

"Good!" she said brightly. She walked toward him where he sat collapsed into his chair like a deflated balloon. She leaned over and kissed his temple. "But you look very tired, honey. The game must have taken more out of you than usual. You aren't usually home anywhere near this early on Quidditch nights."

She hung up her light summer cloak on a hook in the hall closet and walked back into the parlour. "As for me, the movie was terrible, but we had loads of fun laughing about it after, at Castle of Calcutta."

She put her bag on the secretary in the hall. She'd bought it after Lily was born, when she'd decided she needed more space for organizing important papers. Something that locked out little hands. He had loved it immediately. He thought it was one of their most attractive pieces of furniture, but it also had felt terribly grown up, buying something like that, and then storing away the new will, the life insurance papers, the Gringotts statements. How was it that being grown up had once seemed exciting and desirable?

"I'm going to bed, love." She kissed his temple, then stroked his hair away from his face. "You coming?"

"Soon, honey," he answered, making an effort to smile and look into her eyes.

As soon as he heard their bedroom door close, he warded the Floo closed and double checked the anti-Apparition spells on the house. Then he went up to shower before he climbed into bed to sleep next to his wife.

He made certain not to masturbate.

*************

For days afterwards the physical memories hit like a bludger to the gut. Draco's cock pressed up against his arse. Draco's hands on his body. Draco's lips on his ear. The way Draco said that damned word: "Yes." Offers spoken and promises unspoken. The thoughts were violent, unpredictable, derailing. He felt even worse about work than usual, because he kept losing himself in sexual fantasies instead of paying attention to DMLE business.

He tried transferring the lust to Ginny. They sent Lily to Molly and Arthur for the weekend and he took Ginny out to dinner. At his request, she wore her low-cut black silk. When the wine arrived he took off his shoe and stroked her leg with his foot. He murmured in her ear about oysters and cherries. They skipped dessert, got half their meals wrapped up to go, and Apparated to a posh hotel room he'd reserved in advance.

In the morning Ginny was covered with scratches and bites, and she walked to the shower nude, with a shit-eating grin and a beckoning finger. Harry pantomimed exhaustion and lay in the wide, soft bed staring at the ceiling. His body was sated but his brain was still running one incessant track, and it wasn't Ginny.

He stepped up his exercise routine. All it meant was that every morning he spent his entire ten mile run imagining Draco naked, eager and begging. Even though his scheme had backfired, he kept it up. He needed to get in better shape for work, anyway. Some of the young recruits were still making better arrest and conviction numbers than he was and he refused to accept it or get used to it.

**************

Harry decided that he wasn't willing to lose Draco's friendship over something so unimportant. So Draco had made a pass at him, and he was boring or old or settled enough to let it interrupt his dreams. So what. It would never go any further, and he was adult enough to move on.

Pretending there was no shake in his quill or lump in his throat, he owled Draco a breezy, casual offer to meet for lunch. He intentionally used the same wording he'd used before.

 _Draco, how about Pittlefrough's Pocket and Pasta Place on Diagon Alley? Meet you there today at noon. Harry_

He told himself it meant nothing that he had to write it out twice so it looked right to his eye: neither frantically scribbled or carefully penned.

Draco was already there when Harry arrived five minutes late. Their palms were both dry and cool when they met for a manly shake, and Harry knew he'd been right. It had been nothing, and it meant nothing, and nothing would come of it.

He told himself that the slight twisting feeling in his intestines was relief mixed with hunger and ordered the extra large prawn platter.

He started having lunch out with Draco every week. They always met in very public places, like patio restaurants in wizarding districts. He made sure they were never alone together. All he really wanted was to spend time with a good friend.

He wasn't gay, never had been, and this was all a mistake. But he stopped looking at pornography online when he nervously realized he was pulling up more and more pictures of slim, blonde men. With, and also without, women along with them in the videos.

He volunteered for a long distance assignment that took him all the way out to Fionnphort on the Isle of Mull, but - to his frustration -his fantasies came with him. When he realized it was a relief to sleep alone in the rented room, alone where his wife wouldn't protest his increased masturbation, alone where he wouldn't roll over and accidentally touch her in the middle of the night, he rushed the investigation and headed home as soon as he was allowed.

He tried dumping the memories of the kitchen encounter into a Pensieve, but he didn't feel comfortable with the possibility that Ginny might see them, lest she misunderstand. In addition, he had thought he would feel better without the memory in his head, but - to his annoyance and shame - he missed it. Unable to stop himself, he ended up diving into the Pensieve to watch the memory a few times, from a few different angles, and then putting it back into his head where no one could see it. Or at least where no one _else_ could see it.

He started needing to have lunch with Draco twice, then three times a week. Draco always said "yes" when he asked, even if it was last minute. They never talked about the moment in the kitchen. Harry decided Draco had forgotten all about it.

Harry, of course, had not, but he didn't fantasize about having sex with Draco when the man was across the table from him. When they were together Draco felt like a friend. A warm, close, beautiful, indispensable friend. Spending time with him in person seemed the best way to fend off anything else.

Except that the dreams were so much more intense on the nights after he saw Draco in person.

Ginny noticed he was distracted but he fobbed her off with little fibs about work, with a sprained ankle that he made out to be worse than it really was, and with their mutual concern that James might not be doing well now that he was a third year and his classes were more advanced.

He found excuses not to have sex with his wife and refused to think about why. He headed upstairs to sleep later and later every night. He thought longingly, shockingly, about sleeping in the guest bedroom, told himself he was ridiculous and refused to consider it again.

If he said anything to Ginny it would make it real. He'd done nothing wrong. It was best not to worry her with anything so ridiculous.

But he needed to meet Draco for a pint. Needed to see him. Laugh with him. To brush shoulder against shoulder, thigh against thigh as though it was an accident. Draco agreed to meet and they stayed out too late. As usual.

His wife was asleep when he got home and he refused to think that he might be glad for any reason other than that Ginny needed her sleep. One of them should get some, certainly.

It got worse and worse, but he was determined to wait it out. It would die. He would kill it himself.

He lasted a month.

***************

At three in the afternoon on the day of their regular monthly Seeker's match, Harry Potter himself, his full senior Auror regalia concealing an erection that could have battered down the doors of Azkaban, strode for the first time through the front doors of Malfoy, Ollerton, and Vane: Insurance and Wealth Management. The profoundly flustered receptionist forgot to ask why Auror Potter wanted to see Mr. Malfoy, and she simply fluttered him to the boss's office and opened the doors for him, even though Draco was in a meeting.

Harry felt his blood throb and magic expand and contract with every shaking breath he took and tried to pretend he didn't know why he was there.

With a silent, world famous Auror damn near breathing fire in the doorway, the meeting broke up immediately. Nervous businessmen Apparated and Flooed out, avoiding the door, hardly daring to look Potter in the eye, as though he might take them into custody if they dared so bold a challenge. When they were all gone, Draco - arrogant and angry in midnight blue silk formal robes - tapped some parchment on his desk in irritation.

"You probably just cost my firm a few million galleons, Potter. What do you have to say to me?"

Harry didn't recall moving across the room. He had no memory of slamming the door shut behind him as he strode toward his goal. He could not remember pulling Draco into his arms.

He thought he would never forget, however, the pain of relief as he finally succumbed, and the stunned look on Draco's face as he lowered his lips to the other man's and whispered only, "Yes."

When Harry pulled out of that first, intense kiss, Draco concentrated and did a complicated swirl and jab with his wand that threw up privacy wards Harry could feel like solid bricks up against the walls. Harry knew he had no right to be suspicious when they were committing adultery together, but he couldn't help but growl possessively.

Draco actually blushed as he explained. "I've perfected that combination of spells only recently, so I could wank to thoughts of you while I was locked here in my office."

Pleased, concentrating on nothing but his chosen lover, Harry inattentively released his wand to fall on the plush Oriental carpet. Then with one arm still curled around Draco's back he began to unfasten the other man's clothing.

Draco looked at him, eyes wide and nearly black with need but still curious. He said nothing, but pointed his head and indicated his wand.

"No magic. I need to do this with my own two hands, Draco."

Draco relaxed into Harry's caress and dropped his wand to rest perpendicular upon Harry's.

Harry finally finished undoing all Draco's clothing, leaving robes hanging off his shoulders, trousers unlaced all the way down to his bollocks and threatening to slide right off slim white hips. Draco wore no pants. Harry felt his mouth water so forcefully that it hurt. He'd not been this hungry in years.

He lowered Draco to kneel with him on the carpet. He caressed the robes from Draco's shoulders and the dark blue silk slithered swiftly to cover Draco's lower legs. Harry felt it ripple over his hand.

This was wrong. He knew this. He would pay for it later somehow. He knew this as well, and felt sad for it. The knowledge that he was a bad person gave him pause, then he brushed it aside. No one could deny him this. No one could take this from him. God himself would understand that Harry no longer had the strength to resist this.

How could God not understand? God was right here in the room.

This was beauty. Perfection. Irresistible sin of the purest shape.

He was lost. He'd worry about being found some other day. He could seek forgiveness later, when he was done with the sin that called him underneath the waves.

He slipped Draco's unlaced trousers gently over the hard cock underneath. Had he actually wondered how he would feel if faced with another man's erection? There was no hesitation, no discomfort or uncertainty. There was only desire, need, hunger pounding through his brain, his veins, his very bones. This was the most natural conclusion to a rivalry that had made history.

Draco lay on the carpet as Harry finally took off his own clothing. Then, stretching out next to Draco, Harry looked him in the eye and smiled. "Yes," he said again. "Yes."

Fucking Draco was like nothing else on earth. Harry was a taste bud immersed in chocolate. He was the worm in the tequila. He was catching the snitch in a World Cup game. He was addicted instantly.

He didn't return to DMLE at all that day.

That night they didn't make it out of the changing rooms at the Tutshill stadium. Harry fucked Draco in the shower, pressed up against the lockers, on a pile of Tornados uniforms that they nervously spelled clean three times before they left.

Harry couldn't believe his luck. He'd already established (in what he still preferred to think of as complete innocence) multiple reasons to have lunch with Draco as often as three times a week. They still met three and four times a week at noon, but now they never actually bothered to Floo out of Draco's lovely office.

It was the best sex he'd ever had. It astonished him, intoxicated him. He'd not realized that sex could be that overwhelming, orgasms that powerful.

He refused to speculate about why.

A fortnight later, and an hour after Harry kissed Draco goodbye slowly in front of the Floo, then frantically after he stepped out for just one more caress, one more kiss, Icarus Diggle said something snotty to him in the tea room. Harry absentmindedly patted the boy on the back and asked after his father.

He was simply too happy to bother with Diggle today.

He was sure Ginny suspected nothing, but just before the boys were due to come home from Hogwarts, he forced himself to repeat their evening out. Lily went again to stay with her grandparents, Harry brought Ginny out for a fancy dinner and a night at a nice hotel.

Funny how much easier it was to plow Ginny really hard when his eyes were closed.

That morning when Ginny suggested they shower together, he made sure to accept, but it was Draco he thought of as he bit her neck and came deep inside her. It was Draco he thought of while water that felt like tears poured all over their naked, coupled bodies. He kept his eyes closed.

He was very careful to avoid Draco's eyes when the two families met up at King's Cross, both there to pick up their boys. He had no idea how Draco was faring. They'd neglected to discuss this in advance. It felt less like cheating when they didn't talk about it. Ginny greeted Celie with great affection, however, and Harry felt a guilt so bone-deep that he nearly sat down.

He made sure to greet Celie and Scorpius with his own, genuine affection instead. After all, he was fond of them both, though it hurt to think about it. And no one could suspect. He felt the calling heat of Draco's body from two feet away and instinct rose in him to hide, to cower, to duck his head in shame.

He knew better. It would look desperately suspicious. So he pretended that Draco was nothing more than the good friend he'd been not long before and - shaking inside - he shook his lover's hand while staring at Draco's smooth high forehead instead of looking him in his soft grey eyes.

Bile rose in his throat and he had to excuse himself to the loo. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt overwhelmed him as he leaned his burning cheek against the cool metal wall of the stall. He thought again about giving Draco up, ending the affair, doing the right thing.

He had to. How could he do this? And yet, how could he not? He chose, every day, to do the wrong thing, to not confess, to break promises, to put his own heart first and wallow in illicit sex and the gut-churning guilt it brought.

He would stop. Of course he would. Later. But not now, not yet. He could handle the guilt for a little while longer, and when he no longer could, then he would summon up the strength to stop.

He didn't allow it to stop him from meeting Draco later that week. He rushed to a Muggle take-away that served dry, nearly tasteless curries. It was his favorite place to stop for lunch when he was rushing off to meet Draco in the middle of the day. The food didn't interfere with his digestion and was just bad enough that the place never had much of a line, even at noon when everywhere else was packed.

Sometimes Harry wondered how they stayed in business, but as long as they did, he was too busy with his own double life to care.

Harry walked and ate, heading to a Muggle park he'd never visited before. He'd casually walked to a lot of Muggle parks since he'd started this affair. Once there he sat at a bench for the last few bites of his lunch, threw the messy containers in a bin and made for the most secluded looking section he'd been able to spot while eating. When he was sure no one saw, he Apparated into Draco's office.

Draco was sitting at his enormous cherry wood desk. He looked up at Harry and smiled. Harry stayed silent as Draco activated a small rectangular stone on his desk.

"Elanine? I've gotten to a point with this contract where I must not be interrupted."

"Of course, Sir," his executive secretary's disconnected voice replied through the stone.

Draco waved his wand in that complicated swirl and jab that had become so familiar over the last six weeks. When Harry could feel the reassuring strength of the wards, he started to unbutton his Muggle style shirt. When Draco pushed his chair away from his desk and made a move to stand, Harry shook his head 'no.'

"Stay right there, lover. I want to watch your face while you watch me undress."

Draco nodded slowly, a warm smile now open on his lips.

"I love that smile, you know?" Harry pulled his shirttails out of his trousers and then finished unbuttoning down the center. "I'd never seen anything like that on your face till we became friends." He unbuttoned the right shirt cuff, then the left. "When you like someone, when you trust him, you're a completely different person than you were back in school." The shirt fell to the floor and Harry kicked it away, kicked off his shoes and began to unbuckle his belt.

"Am I?" Draco drawled. He spread his linen business robe open and Harry could see the outline of his lover's erection straining the lacings of the trousers he wore underneath. Today he wore no shirt. His chest was pale. His muscles were angled and rounded planes.

Harry couldn't see them from this distance, but he knew from experience that a few of the hairs between Draco's pinkish nipples were white. Draco let both hands fall to his crotch. He slowly teased at his own cock. His face now shone with anticipation.

Harry wondered briefly if he would see more than anticipation in those grey eyes, if he looked for it. He stepped out of his trousers and stood there in socks and black boxer briefs.

"Yes. There's so much more to you than I ever knew, Draco." He played with the waistband of his briefs. "You're so intelligent, so funny. You're such an incredible friend, too. Such a good listener. I never imagined I'd feel able to tell you anything. Especially not things that were humiliating or upsetting."

"As wonderful," Draco's voice was husky and he cleared his throat, "as it is to hear you praise me, love, I think it's time for you to come closer and use your mouth for something else."

Harry smirked as he stood there for a moment, staring into Draco's eyes. Then he walked over and leaned on the desk as he pulled off one sock, then the other. He carefully pulled his boxer briefs over his cock. He knelt in front of Draco to open his lacings, then pulled the fabric down over just the head of his rosy cock.

"Fuck, you're in a teasing mood, aren't you? I hate these moods almost as much as I love them."

Harry only winked up at Draco and then mouthed what he could reach of his cock. Taking Draco into his mouth had proven shockingly pleasurable. He loved to give and receive power this way, to do something this intimate with this person, to simultaneously prove his own zeal and Draco's trust in him.

Draco's breath went ragged and he grabbed a little more firmly at the arms of his chair, but said nothing and did not thrust upward. Harry pushed Draco's legs open as far as they would go and caressed his testicles through the soft fabric he still wore over them.

"Love this part of you," he mumbled around the tip of Draco's cock. "Love sucking your pretty cock and holding your bollocks in my hands."

Draco did not respond, so Harry pulled more of Draco's cock into his mouth, sliding the whole length free of the cloth that still bound his bollocks. He held most of it in his hand while sucking lightly at the head and wondered how to proceed. Suck Draco hard and fast till he came in Harry's mouth? He'd learned to do that well, and he enjoyed it more than he'd ever been able to imagine he would. But maybe not while he was on his knees.

He could tease Draco with a little hard and fast, or perhaps instead a little light and tentative, and then coax him onto the rug and fuck him until their bones melted and their brains dribbled out their ears.

Sometimes it was hard to know what he wanted, because he wanted it all.

"Can't quite decide," he finally mumbled around his fat morsel, "how to make you come."

"Inside me," Draco whispered. "Oh, so want you inside me." Then Draco gripped the arms of the chair and pulled himself slightly more upright. "If you're asking my opinion, that is." He winked.

Harry gave his most lopsided grin. "I could stand to accept a little input. Since you're offering."

"Stand? Yes, we should stand."

Harry tipped his head. "Wasn't on the table before, but sure." He let go of Draco and stood up, taking Draco's hands and pulling the other man up in front of him. He slipped one hand under the summer linen to hold onto Draco's side. With his right hand he unfastened the robe and slid it off Draco's shoulders. It slid to the floor in a pile of blue folds.

Draco looked into his eyes. The depth of feeling that ricocheted through Harry's heart surprised him.

Slowly, he stepped even closer, chest to chest, cock against cock. Hesitantly, with something almost like shyness tickling at the edges of his mind as though he'd never done this before, he put his lips upon Draco's lips and opened their mouths into a kiss. He felt reassured when his lover's arms sought around to the center of his back and reached for his shoulder blades.

Slipping one hand into the silk of Draco's pale, short hair, Harry carefully touched his tongue tip to Draco's. When no electric shock resulted, he pulled Draco's tongue into his mouth and dragged his teeth over it lightly. Draco groaned and Harry felt his pulse skip in response.

 _Bloody hell, you turn me to jelly,_ he thought inside the safe enclosure of his mind. _Need you, Draco. Need your touch. Need it every goddamn day. Would break without it. Would shatter and die if you left me._

 _Holy fuck. Was that really true?_

Draco rolled his hips slowly into Harry's and leaned his head back slightly, inviting Harry to follow him and direct the kiss. Gratefully, Harry discarded his train of thought and concentrated on giving pleasure. Enjoying the two inches of bristly toothbrush hairs at the base of Draco's neck, he stroked them like they were velvet and pressed Draco backwards till he arched over the desk like a pale rainbow.

"Let's get these off you now," Harry murmured appreciatively, sliding a hand between Draco's arse and the silky cloth that still covered it.

Suddenly sporting a mirthful smile that Harry found nearly too adorable to bear, Draco wriggled just far enough away from Harry and his desk to remove the rest of his clothing. Then he rubbed teasingly along Harry's body as he positioned himself for a hard fuck: hands gripping the desktop, arse pointed up as high as it would go.

"Lube?" Harry whispered, staring eagerly at his lover's tight, round bum. He framed it with his hands to feel the warmth of Draco's skin.

"It's already inside me, Harry. Started to prepare myself a few minutes before I thought you might arrive."

The picture of Draco at his desk, wantonly shoving lubed fingers up his own arsehole, legs splayed over the arms of his chair, wards recklessly down, eyes closed and pretty face grimacing with pleasure was too much for Harry to resist. He took himself in hand and lined his cockhead up carefully with Draco's entrance. Then he thrust deep into Draco's greedy heat and gently bit and nipped a pattern down the lines of Draco's shoulder.

He'd not planned to make love this way, he'd imagined they would be on the rug again, looking into one another's eyes. But the sense of drowning was too much. He was afraid that if they'd made love face to face today he'd never have been able to surface again.

***************

All that summer Harry and Draco indulged, more and more often, taking larger and larger risks to be together - both in private and in public. They still drank together, ate together, and hid themselves away together as well. It was reckless, but somehow he felt confident that Ginny wouldn't know, wouldn't even suspect. Who would think Harry Potter would be "with" Draco Malfoy? Who would think Harry Potter would have sex with another man?

Harry told himself repeatedly that he would stop. Only… later. When he could. When he was sated. When it burned itself out. When his heart had held Draco just long enough to withstand the withdrawal. When the guilt finally overrode the magnetic pull of pleasure. For how could anything like this last? But it did, and it consumed more and more of him.

They made love in Draco's office. In hotels. In Tutshill's changing rooms. One memorable night they Apparated to the edge of the Hogwarts gate and made love on the Hogwarts pitch.

"Please Draco, please. I need you inside me."

"I want to be inside you, I want you desperately. But I promised to make it last tonight."

" _Fuck_ that shit. Need your cock inside me _now_."

Draco chuckled. "No one could turn me on the way you do, Harry. No one."

Harry lay on the cloak, one hand teasing at his cock, the other curling in the damp grass. "Then prove it. Fuck me till I pass out. Fuck me till I scream your name and some poor, misguided do-gooder comes running to save me. Fuck me till I can't speak or think. Until all I can do is feel you and see you and need you."

Draco closed his eyes and tilted his head to the sky. "You keep talking like that and I'll come all over your belly like a sixteen year old boy."

Harry pulled his now moist hand from the grass and reached for Draco's chest, smiling when his lover recoiled slightly from his damp, cold fingers. "Warm me, Draco. I'm cold. Be my blanket."

He watched with happy lust as Draco knelt around his thighs and braced strong slender arms around his shoulders. Harry traced a blue vein down Draco's left arm, reveling yet again in the clean, unmarked skin. No one had a Dark Mark anymore, and Harry had never had the courage to ask if Draco's arm had always been this clean. But he didn't think he could have done this if it were there now.

"Fuck me?" Harry begged again. Draco's eyes burned grey fire.

His lover growled and bent to bite Harry's neck. "Till you can't even breathe, I promise."

****************

He awaited the other shoe. Any day now, Draco would deny him, slow him, caution him. Any day now Draco would say they needed to be more discreet, more careful, sensible. Any day now Draco would laugh at him and say it was only lust, only sex.

All Draco ever said was "yes."

It made it damn near impossible for Harry to ever say "no."

He could hardly wait for all four of their children to start Hogwarts on September first. Then they would have even more free time, even fewer demands and responsibilities.

He wasn't quite sure when he'd last had sex with Ginny. He made sure to offer occasionally, so she wouldn't suspect anything. She seemed satisfied, and - most important - unaware. But of course she was unaware. How could she be anything else? She had complete faith in him. The guilt rose in him again, and again he beat it back with Quidditch, with work, with an extra pint, with time stolen from his life to spend with Draco.

*****************

With perfect poetic justice it was Rita Skeeter who burst their bubble. The photograph didn't exactly prove anything, but the implications were unmistakable. And the article's first paragraph alone was salacious enough that Harry was surprised it had been printed as it was.

Ginny was reading it when Harry got home from his morning run.

At first, of course, he had no idea. She was sitting at the table and he entered the house as though it was any other morning, planning to shower, shave, dress for work. Planning to keep his hands well away from his erection so he could more easily come inside Draco later. He'd spent his entire run trying to decide between asking for Draco's arse or Draco's mouth. He still hadn't settled on an answer.

But his wife stood up at the table, holding the _Prophet_ open to the gossip pages, a picture of him and Draco in an alleyway. He had his arms up on the bricks, Draco held in. They weren't touching, but Draco's coy smile was visible.

"You fucking bastard." Her voice was shaking. Harry stepped into the kitchen, numbed, shocked and stupid. He looked at her properly for the first time in months. Still fairly slender, her hair still vivid and gorgeous, her clothes pleasing, her eyes snapping intelligence and fire. What was wrong with him, that he would give this away? What was wrong with him, that he would hurt this woman and violate the promises he'd made to her and throw away their life together?

He reached for the table and spread his feet half a foot apart to steady himself. Then, leaning over, he bent his head and breathed for a moment. His gorge rose in his terror but he forced it back down.

He was a fool. His mind filled with honeyed skin, red hair, gorgeous little breasts in his hands in his mouth rubbing on his chest as she curled and cried and came on his cock, memories of long nights with their perfect, wonderful, vulnerable babies and happy moments with the children and holidays around an enormous table with Ron and Hermione and Arthur and Molly and Weasleys by the handful and him one of them, accepted, loved, happy and at home. A life. A life he'd chosen freely, with joy. And only now he'd thrown it in the garbage did he see the shining diamond mountain beauty of it.

And yet, Draco. His heart rushed with the sensations of Draco's skin under his hand, the drowning squeezing honey-plunge of Draco tight around his cock, the astonishing sharp deep thick soft filling full pleasure of Draco inside him. His heart-soul-mind drowned in tall white planes of slender muscled man, grey eyes filled with joyful mirthful happiness, a wit incisive enough to slice glass, golden pints and golden snitches and sex sex sense consuming sexsexsex.

He was in love with them both, and God help him now.

He considered actively lying to her, but realized that he could no more do that at this moment than he could have admitted the affair before she'd learned of it from the paper. And even if he was capable of looking her in the eye and claiming it was all Rita Skeeter's invention it was too late now. She'd seen the look in his eye and the change in his posture when she'd accused him.

The cat was out the bag, out the door, and in the road.

"I'm sorry, Ginny. I was wrong, I know. I just… I was weak. Can you forgive me?" Later he'd figure out how to end it with Draco. Right now he had to save his marriage.

"You were _weak_? That's all you can come up with? You destroy my confidence, my sense of self-worth, my ability to trust my own judgment and observations and you think that's all right because you were feeling a bit _weak_?" She stood tall and burned, a righteous firebrand of hatred and wronged wife.

"Ginny, I…" he considered describing how stupid and old and useless he'd felt before Draco had made him feel young and vital. He imagined explaining that - in essence - being with her felt stodgy, middle-aged and responsible and being with Draco felt like flying free, a winged snitch hiding from the world.

He considered seeking kind ways to clarify that he had thought himself bored with her - her body, her mind, her life and the life she represented - and that he'd willingly risked her love, and their marriage, for the excitement of a new, dangerous tryst.

He still loved her too much to say anything so cruel.

He could think of nothing else to say.

So he repeated himself, and then began to beg. "Yes. I was weak. I did unforgivable things. But I'll stop. I won't see him anymore. I'll break off," his voice cracked and he ignored it and continued to babble and plead, "the relationship, the friendship, the lunches, the Quidditch games. I'll never look at him again if only you'll forgive me and stay."

She leaned on the table and the paper, still clenched and ignored in her fists, tore a little. She didn't seem to notice. "You know, I can almost believe you mean that shite. Enough that if you'd said those things _before_ this appeared in the newspaper, perhaps I would have tried to move on with you and put this behind us." Her voice increased in volume and Harry cringed away instinctively. "But it's too late, Harry. You've crushed my heart and humiliated me publicly and I'm leaving you. It's over."

Bracing his legs against the table, he stood as tall as he could, taller than his wife, and spoke words he hadn't realized he'd already chosen.

"You wouldn't leave me, Ginny. You wouldn't break up our home and take me away from the children." He'd intended to sound strong. Even threatening. He was almost certain he'd failed.

"No," her voice was clear and strong and high. She answered him without hesitation and now Harry knew his marriage was truly over. She was infuriated beyond anything he'd ever seen. "That's really what you told yourself? That you could get away with adultery because I wouldn't punish the children for your sins?"

She gripped the paper so tightly he thought it would rip fully in two.

Harry stared at her white fingers and again thought of nothing at all to say.

"It is, isn't it? You really thought I'd let you get away with this, let you do this to me, because of our kids. And here I thought you were going to tell me it wasn't really cheating if it wasn't with a woman." She radiated disgust, and Harry could see it had nothing to do with the shape of Draco's skin, and everything to do with Harry touching it. "Well I have a lesson for you, _husband_."

He'd thought a moment earlier that her eyes were warm and beautiful as they eviscerated him. Now her voice was clear, bright, high and furious. He'd never heard anything so clean and pretty and painful. She was a force of nature and he was a sapling in her path.

"I'm planning on teaching the children a very different lesson indeed. Namely, if someone treats you like the dirt on their shoe, you don't give them a chance to do it again. I'm kicking you out, Harry, and I'm keeping Lily and the boys here with me. We'll see if you even come with us to the Hogwarts Express next month."

The reality of not being in the same house as the children every summer, not spending holidays with them, not being able to take their easy need and dependence and unquestioning love for granted, tore at the very muscle of his heart.

"Because the children are going to know what you did, you selfish piece of slime. Because I want them to understand what adultery is, what it does. You took a beater's bat to our family, Harry. This is your doing. And all for what, exactly? You think he loves you? You think he wants to marry you and live with you forever? A man who would destroy two families for his own lust? I think he used you, took his petty revenge, and now that he's got evidence in the paper that he played you for a fool, you'll never see him again. I bet he's in France, making it up to poor Celie."

Her voice caught briefly on the name, and Harry realized that Ginny had come to care deeply for Celie. That Ginny and Celie were friends. He'd not given Celie more than a moment's consideration.

"Telling her he'll never do it again, he didn't mean it, it meant nothing."

Her voice became mocking and it hurt. Why did it hurt so much? She was just angry. As, of course, she should be. He knew he was in the wrong. The guilt was back and here and now and all around and it was all his fault and he knew that. He knew that. But Draco… not beautiful Draco. Draco would never…. Harry needed…. And they would all find a way to make it work, and they could all be happy.

"Get out of my house. Cheater. Filthy adulterer. Go to your lover and see what he says to you. I'll bet he doesn't even remember your name."

Harry stood, moved, stumbled against the doorframe. No. No. She was wrong. It couldn't possibly…. Because he was bad and wrong and deserving of nothing… but Draco was light and air and he loved him he loved them he loved them all and he'd broken everything. He'd ruined it all and could anything, anything be saved from the ashes?

Harry moved for the Floo. Ginny stood, glaring, radiating righteous fury.

Harry fought back a need to retch as he grabbed for the Floo powder, threw it in the fire and yelled, "Malfoy Manor!" He thought he could see the eyes of one or two of his children glittering wetly from the staircase, but he couldn't stop now. If one love was destroyed, perhaps the other could still be saved. He would find a way, somehow, to explain this to his kids. Later. When he could think. When he could see. Right now his eyes were full of tears.

He half-tripped into Draco's cold, empty parlour.

"Malfoy?" He cried out in a broken, crumbling voice. "Draco?"

 

 _  
**finis**   
_


End file.
